Bret Stephen’s column on the tax bill is reasonable until he gets to the corporate tax. At that point, he feels that the corporate tax is too high. Well folks, show me a corporation that actually pays taxes. The average corporation pays no taxes because they can use the loopholes built into the tax structure that small businesses can’t use.
It was the Bush administration that started moving jobs and manufacturing out of the country, thus causing massive job loss. The small business usually uses a tax service to file their tax forms, eliminating their time and money to get it right, and larger corporations never have the owners sit down and do their taxes. They have account experts within the company who are always there as their services are not just used for tax preparation.
I doubt that the Dems advocated high taxes, but advocated taxes to be fair and not on the backs of middle and lower class. Now he suggests that maybe the funds should go to shareholders. Large corporations can hide money in many other countries and do not have to declare to the U.S. government. Democrats have never asked for unfair tax schedules, but when pointed out by Bret, you would think both parties did, or want the same program.
It is not fair to point to the president because it is Congress that writes the tax bill and a Republican Congress will never cut taxes for the lower classes. Now, where is the money going then? The robust growth is from a previous administration, but claimed by Congress and the president as their actions.
The biggest effect the tax bill will have is found in the source of payment. The money will come from civil programs that benefit all. The monies saved by the middle class is wiped out by the extreme rise in health care prices because the tax bill will allow insurance companies to charge what they want with no oversight. You can predict a 30 percent rise in premiums next year, and an average of 20 percent every year after that.
The CEOs are already saying that they won’t have to spend the tax giveaway because they are governed by shareholders and want the revenue to rise and end up in the pockets of the rich. Is it an overblown reaction to point out that cuts will not help the middle class, because all of their cost will rise for all other services?
The trickle-down effect does not work, as proven by the Reagan administration, advocated and put in place by Republicans.
The tax bill was put in place by a nonpartisan group of Republicans behind closed doors with their lobbyists, and presented so no one would have time to read it, and most in the Republican Congress has never read what they signed.
All they did was to put add-ons that had nothing to do with a tax budget, and even had hand written add-ons that are not readable. Not one Republican has read the bill and most had no input. We will be paying for the education and health cuts because companies are not required to accept preexisting conditions. Anyone who actually read the bill will see the pillage of the middle class. Please read before you support something that you know nothing about.
David Andrew Macdonald is a resident of Captain Cook.
